


Nothing Left Behind

by ninnie_eats_chips



Series: Asymmetry [7]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Au Ra Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Established Relationship, F/M, Feels, Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Missing Scene, Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal, Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal Spoilers, SPOILERS YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED, Specific Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25974481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninnie_eats_chips/pseuds/ninnie_eats_chips
Summary: A certain missing scene from 5.3.Contains major spoilers, so do not read on if you haven't finished MSQ!
Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light
Series: Asymmetry [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1539757
Comments: 7
Kudos: 61





	Nothing Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> How could I not have a go at this? 
> 
> I'm so happy... How did I legit get the ending that I dreamed of? Like this was going to be my AU, but it's.... IT'S REAL. PINCH ME.
> 
> Contains some angst leading up to things but otherwise very happy. <3  
> If you did not enjoy the ending of the patch, then this probably isn't the fic for you!

Lilium didn’t need to be told to sprint as fast as her legs could take her. G’raha was ever on her mind, from the first step she took when she could finally bring herself to turn away from his crystallized body. The final words of the Crystal Exarch never left her, just as the vessel bearing his mind and soul never left her side for a single moment.

_‘What if I told you that we would meet again? Would you believe me?’_

She could not bear to let him go. She could not bear to lose him a second time.

While each of her friends stirred awake, and with complete awareness of themselves, her heart pounded out of her chest with excitement that _they worked._ The vessels that G’raha had worked so painstakingly to create, almost unto his death, were a _complete success._

She had gripped tight on the bag slung over her shoulder where she had been carrying each vessel—the bag that still cradled G’raha’s, individually wrapped in a thick cloth. So powerful was his desire to be with her, that it brimmed over with love she could almost feel even when Lilium wasn’t holding it in her hands. Or maybe it was simply the density of his soul that called out to hers. She would _know_ which one was G’raha’s, whether or not each vessel had been tied with a note. Or at least, she felt she would.

_How strongly she wanted him back._

Lilium had to take his words for true. It would _have_ to work on him too, she thought (and would think of no other outcome). Fate could not fail them now. Not when they had overcome all other obstacles together.

And so the moment there was even a slight suggestion of dismissal from what she’d come to do, she scanned the eyes of the Scions, all looking at her with a certainty that spurred her on. 

‘ _Well, what are you waiting for?’_ They said, and it took no further _real_ words to tell the Auri to take her leave. Hurriedly.

With her hand on the outside of that bag, she ran out of The Rising Stones like she would die if she didn’t, pretending not to see anyone who tried to welcome her home.

When she bursted into the stables to retrieve Comet and found that the stablekeep had taken him away for an ill-timed bath, she must have frightened the other worker with her insistent shouting. She was like a woman possessed, and when she couldn’t have her way, she stamped at the ground and kicked an empty bucket on her way out (and was sure she would have to apologize for her strange behavior later on).

For now, it was impossible to give a care about anything else aside from seeing her love’s two ruby eyes staring back at her, warm and full of life.

She sprinted away on foot with such a burst of energy, and didn’t stop running, ivory tail flailing wildly behind her. The mage was no marathoner, but she had covered her fair share of distances when the adrenaline hit. Running for her life had nothing on this moment. 

She could never recall feeling this way before… such _excitement._ So much at stake. As Lilium passed through the gates out into Mor Dhona, she realized how so many mistakes had been made in the past—so many of them with love and inexperience. Words left unsaid for years. Naivety giving way to heartbreak and danger. How she wanted _Raha_ back, and now could take him back. She could right all of those wrongs and take him back from the cruel future he once awoke to, hold him in her arms instead. Take him _home._

As her boots beat into the crystalline gravel, the cragged land around her turned soft and bleary with the tears that slipped from her eyes, and Lilium only stopped to wipe them away before continuing.

_‘I need you alive and well more than I care to breathe!’_ With what air remained in her lungs she used to chuckle pathetically at herself for having thought it, once the tower was nearly within reach. Something so poetically stupid that G’raha might have said it himself in the throes of danger. ‘ _You would say it; if not in better words, and thirty of them.’_

Lilium’s hand shook when she held up his vessel to the door and waited for the way to open for her, then wasted no time darting through the crack when it was barely large enough for her. 

Exhaustion was catching up. Nay, it had caught up half a malm ago. The fire in the Auri’s lungs burned like the hells themselves, only outmatched by that of the flame inside her breast. When she finally reached the Umbilicus and found G’raha curled up at the back of the room, her aching heels suddenly became stuck in tar. Only a whisper of his name was lost into the hum of crystal around her.

Quiet. Respectfully quiet. Almost like another kind of resting place she would dare not think about. And in the presence of someone who _lived;_ in mind, body, and soul alike, fragmented though the pieces were.

To see him that way, as he had left her after their first adventure ended just two years past... A man she had fallen silly for and had no idea how to reach out to, laid there on his side, none the wiser for the pain and tribulations he would confront—as well as the _joy_ they would later experience after another journey’s end. A small part of her knew not how to feel, even knowing what it was that she had to do.

Lilium removed G’raha’s vessel from her bag and in the dimmed room, clutched its gentle glow tightly in her hand. Thumbed the fine crack the auracite had endured during her battle with Elidibus. She could remember vaguely what Beq Lugg told her: that G’raha would gladly risk it all for the future he wanted. The future he wanted with _her._

He had done it before. He had shown that before. She needed to be willing to risk it all, too. More than anything, Lilium needed to _believe him._

If any part of his past self didn’t want this future, he wouldn’t accept it. It was that plain and simple.

The seconds she wasted felt like minutes, and she would waste no more of the precious time they could have been spending together. With her feet almost numb from the trek, she moved with conviction until she was sitting down on the floor, laying G’raha’s head in her lap, still heaving. She pressed her lips to the unwrapped vessel one more time, set it down next to him and doubled over and _prayed._

_‘Please.’_ To no one in particular.

_‘Please.’_ To _any_ higher being that would listen.

_“Please—“_

The vessel illuminated for several long seconds then, in which she could only clutch the fabric of G’raha’s shirt in her hand, the other resting balmy in his hair, and repeated her nonsensical prayer.

And then the vessel—the Exarch’s last light, faded away. 

Lilium’s heart skipped a beat.

“Mm…” 

“Oh, Gods!” She inhaled at the low sound that came from him. When his head moved in her lap, Lilium took his hand in her own and squeezed it tight—a little chilly from lying asleep in the cold tower for two years—and her other kept stroking through his locks, at his cheek. Until eyelashes fluttered open, and a contemplative look turned into an open-mouthed smile spreading across G’raha’s lips.

His voice was sleepy as he managed to say, “I told you.” Sounded if he had just stayed up too late one night at camp and slept a few bells longer than he was meant to. 

That was how he _looked._ If it wasn’t for the hint of _knowingness_ in his voice, and in those words alone. That smile of his, far wiser than what would have fit for this body back then. Yet, in the decisive moment, she was a little afraid to chase those signs for fear it would be too good to be true.

Lilium forced a chuckle as G’raha squeezed back. She had paused with her hand cupping his cheek, still trembling. Trying desperately not to be overrun by her emotions just yet, Lilium cleared her throat and tested, “Told me what?”

But it seemed that G’raha had no intention of holding back, eyes aglow and brimming with tears of his own.

_He knew. Everything. Her love, not least._

“That we would meet again, my dearest love.” A tiny huff of a laugh escaped as he nuzzled his cheek into her hand. “Or did you forget so soon?”

He pushed himself up at the same time the Warrior of Light gave into a wracking sob, just in time to catch her in the crook of his neck as arms flew around his back.

_“Welcome home!”_

“Yes,” G’raha couldn’t help but loose a few tears into her wavy hair as he held her tightly against his body. “I’m home, Lily! I am sorry... f-for what I did... for what I _had_ to do.”

“I couldn’t sleep last night without you! Knowing that I-I left you behind up there… That I might not ever—!” She gasped.

“Breathe.” His voice was so soothing, wide palm rubbing up and down her back, still dressed from head to toe in the gear she had fought in and not changed since. She was a mess of emotions, even laughing at how she had come to rescue him and whisk him away from that tower, only to end up comforted in his arms again.

“Raha-”

_“Breathe,”_ He reminded her again, more sternly until she acquiesced. That one word shaking with happiness as he grinned into her hair and kissed her there. 

“You left nothing behind... Ever was I with you, even if it wasn’t all of me! Even if a part of me was still here in this tower... I’m with you, always.”

Lilium dug her nails deeper into G’raha’s back. For a time, she stayed in his embrace and just inhaled deeply of her love’s scent; different from the one she’d become accustomed to, yet the same at the core. Just _Raha._

A part of her wanted to throw up from all the running, from the lack of sleep she had gotten, and the cries that slowly ceased to tear through her. But she managed to stabilize herself as she followed G’raha’s instruction: _breathe._

_Yes, now she could finally breathe..._

Eventually Lilium pulled herself together, wiping her reddened eyes on her sleeve and lifting her head to get a good look at G’raha. She wiped away the last of his tears as well, and then took his face in both hands.

“I love you,” He interrupted just before she was about to kiss him.

“I love you too, Raha.” His chin tilted, parting his lips for her with no delay. 

How strange and wonderful it was to see him fully of the flesh, looking as he did when they had merely pined for one another while exploring this tower. Yet the way he kissed her was just practiced enough with a hint of sheepishness. It filled Lilium’s cheeks (and G’raha’s) with such a flush when she looked him in the eyes again, bringing her fingers to the base of his hairline before passionately bringing her lips to his once more.

“You were quite out of breath,” He eventually remarked when he could, brows curling while he reluctantly removed her remaining clammy hand from his cheek. “And a little sweaty... i-if I might add.” 

Her mouth opened, then closed again at the unexpected comment. The glow on her cheeks only deepened, looking down at her garments that he no doubt recognized from the throne platform on The First.

“W-wha-?”

An awkward pause, and a swallow. “... With every respect for you, m-my love. My apologies. I didn’t mean it offensively.”

She would have nudged him if not for their tearful reunion, accounting for his weakness... or if every corner of her heart hadn’t been filled with adoration with him that the comment wouldn’t have just rolled off with a shared chuckle between them.

“You didn’t sprint all the way here by your lonesome, did you?” It only took two blinks and a plastered grin for G’raha’s own jovial look to fade, when he realized the jest was _accurate._

“You _didn’t._ ”

Lilium didn’t answer outright, instead taking his hand once more as she stood on blistered feet in those now damnable heeled boots. The Miqo’te only watched her speechlessly with ears sunken low behind his head. She was sure her wincing attested to the truth. 

G’raha looked up at her with such reverence, still holding her fingers loosely in his own. Tail lifted behind him. He made her feel like there was a halo over her head when he looked at her like that. Watched her like she was an angel, and not an extremely flawed and moody little Auri woman. He always did, especially as the Exarch.

“I’m sorry, I hope you can walk.” Fingers ran quickly through his hair, made his ears wiggle while she pushed back some loose strands on his left side before helping him up with a grunt. “Or with a little groveling, I can go get Comet and be back soon enou—”

G’raha leaned forward and brought his lips to hers so suddenly that Lilium made a noise of surprise.

“I can walk! I will walk with you. As long as it takes. Then we can... we can...” 

She cocked a thin eyebrow, tilting her head at the sudden burst of excitement from him, drawing her close to him once more with his hand on the small of her back. There was a glint in his eye that suggested he was getting far ahead of himself.

“Enjoy _tea_ with our friends who are waiting for us very patiently at Revenant’s Toll?”

“Ah! Yes...” G’raha’s cheeks reddened as the surprise washed over him and he began to smile brightly again. “Y-yes, that would be lovely. And perhaps a bite to eat, if it isn’t too much trouble. I fear I may have gone to bed on an empty stomach.”

Lilium wrapped her arm around G’raha’s back for support in case he needed it, as he placed one around hers.

Before they had completely left the room in one another’s arms, green eyes glanced back at the darkened, gray chunk of auracite lying on the floor by where they had been. 

Having noticed, there was a squeeze at her side.

“You truly have everything?” There was a slight coyness to him, and she caught the twitch of one red ear out of the corner of her eye.

Lips curled up at the corners, and with confidence, the Warrior of Light looked back not one more time. It was her turn to squeeze against G’raha’s side, feeling the brush of soft fur curling around her tail.

“I have _everything.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I definitely have some backtracking to do but I couldn't not write some patch stuff first. SO HAPPY.
> 
> Find me on twitter @cactwerk <3


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